Gathering storm over Education Dept.

William Simon, who served as Treasury secretary under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, noting the slippery nature of statistics, said, “People use statistics like drunks use lampposts – for support rather than illumination.”

While this adage appears to have been coined by the 19th Century Scottish writer Andrew Lang, it provides an apt description of contemporary public policy discussions. Perhaps nowhere more clearly apropos than in describing the continuing battle between advocates for and against for-profit schools.

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For the better part of a year now, a war of words has been waged that pits supporters of for-profit institutions against a number of senior senators and officials at the Department of Education. Statistics purporting to show either that these schools provide vital opportunities for millions of students, who would otherwise be cut off from access to higher education; or, conversely, that the schools’ owners are ripping off vulnerable students, have been lobbed back and forth in Washington. This war of statistics and rhetoric, however, now threatens to spill over into the legal arena.

Letters have been sent to both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wy.) requesting investigations into allegations of improper communications between education officials and parties with a stake in pending federal rules relating to how proprietary schools qualify for federal funding.

Separately, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) took the unusual step of publicly suggesting DOE officials may have committed unlawful acts. If proven so, Coburn said, they “ought to be going to jail.”

His comments came during a Mar. 2 Homeland Security subcommittee hearing looking into the Defense Department Military Tuition Assistance Program. But they were directed at allegations involving Education Department officials engaging in “very significant and inappropriate behavior” by investigating proprietary colleges.

Coburn’s concerns are not new. Last November, for example, he and Sen.. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who serves on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, wrote the inspector general at the Education Department, requesting she investigate allegations that Wall Street “short sellers” were improperly influencing the department’s drafting of rules on so-called “gainful employment.” Such rules could adversely affect for-profit schools and result in a windfall for “short sellers.”